


words cannot espresso

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Female Friendship, Financial Issues, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Marriage Proposal, POV Outsider, Podfic Welcome, Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Puns & Word Play, Romantic Fluff, it doesn't happen it's just on PoV character's mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27397243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Since Marinette did not (as is part of the roommate agreement) text Thérèse to warn her she was bringing someone home with her, Thérèse is entirely within her rights to whack the shirtless guy upside the head with her bag of carrots.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 432





	words cannot espresso

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GalahadWilder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/gifts).



> GalahadWilder:
>
>> Hey guys I want adrienette instant marriage AUs
>> 
>> Like they find out each other’s identities and immediately go from “just friends” to “we’re married now and can’t be pried away from each other”
> 
> My brain: oh hey you know what'd be fun

Thérèse unlocks the apartment with an armful of groceries around seven. There is a roommate-sized lump under the pink-and-black crazy quilt on the top bunk, so Thérèse figures Marinette's home and asleep. This sucks—Marinette is such a light sleeper; if Thérèse wants to do much of anything, she'll have to go back out into the morning, which she does not want to do because work was a special sort of nasty tonight—but it's not unusual.

Since Marinette did not (as is part of the roommate agreement) text Thérèse to warn her she was bringing someone home with her, Thérèse is entirely within her rights to whack the shirtless guy holding the knife upside the head with her bag of carrots.

To try to, anyway. Shirtless guy's a little fast for that. "Sorry, didn't mean to intrude," he says, pointedly setting down the kitchen knife next to the chocolate bar he's chopping, then scooting over by the sink, as out of the way as he can get when there's only like one square meter of kitchen floor. "You must be Thérèse."

She's halfway through asking his name when Marinette's phone goes off. Marinette's phone promptly clatters on the floor. Hot guy curses, eels around Thérèse and her groceries, and hands the phone to the lump under Marinette's covers. Marinette makes inarticulate noises and pushes it back in his face. Hot guy shrugs and swipes to answer. He starts to say something but doesn't get much past "M—" before shutting up. Thérèse has half her cold groceries labeled _T_ and put away when he says "Sorry, Alya, I didn't know I was missing."

A pause. Thérèse steals a bit of the fancy-label dark chocolate and keeps labeling.

"Well spotted," hot guy says, amused. "We were out last night, she fell asleep on me, I brought her home, she did not let me go. Technically she hasn't let go yet, actually, she's still holding my shirt… Do I look like I kiss and tell? — _Alya_. —No, I'm going to feed her, what else would I still be here for? —That's less than one calorie per serving, you know that, right? I refuse to hear any more sex jokes in the presence of Marinette's roommate."

(Thérèse wouldn't mind, but isn't about to interrupt, and anyway hot guy's cheeks are red enough already.)

"Gimme," Marinette mumbles, drowsy. (That's weird. Marinette will go back into a haze if the kettle takes too long about heating water for coffee, but it's a _wakeful_ haze.) " 'Course he can cook, Al'," she says when hot guy puts the phone by her head. "Applied physics and chemistry. Strategic chaos and destruction." A pause. "Nobody's come from next year told me not to 'cause of the bad end, so I'm gonna marry him."

Marinette's friend's shriek is plainly audible. Marinette winces and hangs up. Hot guy drops his face on her pillow, shaking with laughter.

Thérèse steals another bit of the really good chocolate, puts the last cans in the cabinet, grabs a change of clothes, and heads for the bathroom. She's not going to shower with a stranger in her apartment, but she can at least get out of her work clothes and wash her face.

When she comes back out, hot guy is no longer shirtless; Marinette has her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms draped over his chest, and is half snoozing on his shoulder. (Which says impressive things about his strength all in itself, given how Marinette's body weight is like ninety percent muscle.) He's already turning away from the stove when Thérèse leans into the kitchen, and something about the angle of the light hitting his face prompts her to say, "Anyone ever tell you you look like Adrien Agreste?"

"Once or twice," hot guy says with a wry little smile. "Where does she hide the coffee?"

"Uh." Thérèse doesn't keep track of Marinette's food, except to worry that she isn't eating enough.

There prove to be a handful of single-serve instant coffee packets behind the half bag of chocolate chips. Hot guy is utterly dismayed at the sight of them. "No meat," he mutters, "no cheese, no edible vegetables—" (Was it not Marinette who tossed the greens Thérèse remembers were starting to get gross yesterday?) "—and now only _instant_ coffee." He checks the temperature of the small pot of milk on the stove, nods, and starts stirring in the chopped dark chocolate, transferring it one handful at a time since Marinette has caught his other hand. "Maribug, do you even sleep?"

"Sleeping," Marinette informs him without opening her eyes.

Hot guy winces. "That's a no. Three jobs, one unpaid, _and_ a full university course load…"

"She's very driven," Thérèse tells him, hovering out of arm's reach with phone in hand, ready to dial emergency services. It should be obvious to him if he knows that much, or if Marinette knows him well enough that Marinette's friend would call her when they can't find him. But somebody has to worry about Marinette, since Marinette herself might be roofied enough she can't worry about herself, and if he decides to get dangerous…

"Yeah," hot guy says. "It's one of her best qualities. Or it would be if she ever figured out how not to work herself into the ground," he adds to Marinette, tone scolding, eyes soft.

"Hey now," Marinette grumbles. "Not even married yet, kitten. Don't give me grounds for divorce." Hot guy laughs. "Anyway," Marinette adds, "pot, kettle, something or other."

"No fair," hot guy protests, "that's only half my fault! I didn't want to get in hot water with Father! He'd just try to strong-arm me, and then we'd all be bitter."

"We already knew he's tasteless," Marinette muses, sounding distinctly more awake. Hot guy laughs.

On the kitchen counter, Marinette's phone chimes. Hot guy leans over to check it, somehow without Marinette slipping a millimeter, then says to Thérèse, "Alya's here—would you please go let her up? I can't, this'll boil over."

Thérèse, unhappy, goes.

Alya is at least a friend Thérèse has seen Marinette with before, and if asked which friend of the several faces she's seen, Thérèse might even have guessed right. Hot guy is pouring Marinette into her sewing-table chair when Thérèse gets back inside, and Alya pounces on Marinette almost before hot guy is out of arm's reach: "Sooo, any exciting new developments?"

"Wow, you were really concerned with my safety," hot guy deadpans from the kitchen.

"Nino's been telling you for the past five years to run away already," Alya counters. "I was hoping you'd finally done it."

"He's _been_ ," Marinette mumbles. "Since we met."

Alya gives hot guy a strange look. Hot guy, setting the biggest mug in the apartment on a coaster on the sewing table, gives Alya an odd look right back. "Since before," he says. "But I thought you knew that."

"Stay gone now." Marinette braces herself on one elbow to take what smells suspiciously like pretty good hot chocolate spiked with a serving or two of instant coffee. "Get married, move out, dickhead can't even argue too much." She gulps some of the mocha, makes a surprised and super happy noise, and tells hot guy, "I'm keeping you forever."

Hot guy snorts, reddening again and possibly stifling a smile. "You underestimate his need to control everything. And I haven't answered you yet."

Since Alya is definitely awake, sober, and friendly with this guy, Thérèse is willing to relax a bit. "I feel like I missed something?" Thérèse prompts.

Marinette shrugs one shoulder. "I told him something I haven't been telling him since the first time I ever ran into him. His eyes got big like saucers, and he told me something too." She smirks at Alya and takes another drink.

Alya boggles at her. "You _actually_ told him you love him. You really and truly told him."

Alya is not looking at hot guy when she says this, so Alya must not see how very news this is to him. 'His eyes got big like saucers' is exactly accurate.

"She has been asking me to marry her about once an hour," hot guy says. "Counting hours she was sleeping. I told her I'd answer when she was rested and _awake_."

Marinette pins him with a stare and drains her cup.

"Wow." Alya grins at Marinette and hot guy both. "I honestly thought my favorite ship was dead in the water. —Favorite next to DJ Wifi and Ladynoir, of course."

Hot guy slides to the floor, apparently for the express purpose of burying his face in Marinette's knees.

Marinette shakes her head. "Sorry to spring this on you, Thérèse. I'll keep covering my share of rent and stuff until you have something else sorted out."

Good to know. Thérèse needs to go be somewhere else to process and plan. A park, maybe, or a café.

While Thérèse is grabbing the tablet she never takes to work and the library book she's halfway through, she hears (though she's trying to ignore them) Marinette say "I love you and I want to marry you. I was just…scared, I guess, before."

"I don't know," hot guy says, while Thérèse is putting her shoes back on. "I get to have your parents as family, and you get stuck with mine. That doesn't sound like a fair trade."

**Author's Note:**

> [My comment policy](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know): tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.
> 
> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


End file.
